CHEMICAL BROTHERS
Surrender (Astralwerks)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

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The Chemical guys, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, have made some terrific ear candy again. They have a rep for being techno wizards, of course, and there is a heck of a lot of flashy electronic noises programmed into this album for sure, but there’s a lot more than techno going on here.

Surrender covers a lot of styles, making for what could have been a very choppy set of songs, but they’ve cleverly arranged subtle intros and fades so that the various styles mesh together beautifully. On a casual listen you hear the whole album as a piece--you’d swear the songs are mixed together as a 59 minute whole, but it’s actually 11 discrete pieces separated by micro pauses. As a deejay who loves to do this sort of thing myself, my hat’s off to them.

Even better, the cuts stand up individually. Several of them, like "Music: Response," "Under The Influence" and "Hey Boy Hey Girl," are best heard on the dance floor but most seem to travel the same road as "The Private Psychedelic Reel," my favorite from their last original album, Dig Your Own Hole. The title cut is a lovely instrumental that starts off with a Kraftwerk like intro and builds a spacey head of steam with some very un-Kraftwerk-like sitar. The "Sunshine Underground" is another instrumental reminiscent, but not derivative, of "Psychedelic Reel."

My favorite is the triple-blue "Asleep From The Day," featuring trancelike singing -- real vocals, not samples -- by Hope Sandoval. "Asleep’s" melody somehow reminds me of the Who’s old standby, "Getting In Tune," from Who’s Next, but slower. Lots slower. It starts somnambulistically like the Twin Peaks theme, builds some energy, then slows almost to a stop with a glockenspiel solo and then restarts again. I wouldn't call it syrupy or sappy but if this song was sugar, you’d gain weight just by listening to it. "Dream On" (not to be confused with the Aerosmith song) is another wonderfully rich and moody piece that employs a fair amount of acoustic guitar. And you thought these guys were just techno wizards! All the spacier cuts just beg to be put on repeat about one o’clock in the morning.

Surrender and get it already.

© 1999 - Rusty Pipes